Skocpol holds the Tea Party had real grassroots energy beyond elite manufacture.

Evidence

Theda Skocpol, however, disputes said interpretation. Although it is true that conservative organizations eventually climbed aboard and media outlets such as Fox News helped to manufacture the Tea Party’s mystique, she argues that reducing the phenomenon to “top-down maneuvers” misses the point. “Ordinary conservative citizens and community activists, almost all white and mostly older,” she writes, “provided angry passion and volunteered their energies to make the early Tea Party more than just occasional televised rallies.” — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 206

Categorization

• XREF: Skocpol’s defense of bottom-up authenticity parallels the reader’s interest in appropriated institutions and Putnam’s civic-trust framework from the left.